Seven Steps to Easier Home Stagings and Showings

The phone rang and our eyes leaped to read the caller Id. If it was our Real Estate company, our feelings were mixed. While we were excited to have showing requests, keeping an immaculate house through daily meals, laundry, and homeschooling was wearying, especially with a preschooler.  After countless showings though, our family of five…

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Speak the Hard Things

Speak the hard things.  On a cold peeling blue wooden park bench, I shuddered and wrapped my navy sweatshirt around me tighter today. The spring wind was brisk, chilling me as I read.  She shocks me, this author. In between poetic raw faith musings on family and cancer which grab my mind and echo in…

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There’s a Happy Gamer Somewhere

“Mom, can I stay up a little bit later to read my Bible?”  What a rascally thing to ask! What mother can say no to that?  It was past her bedtime, but she was emotional and distraught from a mini-fiasco in her computer game, losing all her rare items in one accidental trade. Frantic phone…

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A Recovered Diamond

Upswept blonde hair twirled into a loose French bun revealed classic pearl earrings and the back view of her face. A grandson bounced on her lap as she sang “Holy is the Lord God Almighty,” pausing to wipe tears from her cheeks in the chorus.  Minutes earlier, after the first rousing song and when the…

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Trying to Be a Good Mom

Silence descends on our home now. I flip on soothing music, cut some cheese wedges, and curl up next to the computer.   It’s hard work being a mom.   In stress and angst over school, schedules, or their social life, my teens’ emotions can escalate. Sadly, mine do too.  We have had real estate…

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A Tale of Two Curtains: An Easter Visual

Curtains have been on my mind this week. I accidentally shredded a yellow striped shower curtain on Saturday. Racing to the store after church on Sunday, I chose and bought a new shower curtain, installing it just before a real estate home showing that afternoon.  In church that day, the pastor touched on a passage…

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Explaining Easter to a Preschool Warrior

Bringing up topics of pain, torture and death to three year olds is hard. Splashed across the pages of my son’s children’s Bible are scenes of Jesus being whipped and hung on a cross.  Before that page, though, are the ones that most grab his attention. Jesus is pictured, surrounded by a ring of soldiers…

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Build Your Arsenal of Presidents’ Trivia

New life bursts.   From a late-night walk with my oldest, a sprig of tiny green leaves and white balled blossoms now perch in a bud vase on my kitchen sink.  In the living room my teens stood, taking turns with verbal presentations on American presidents. The assignment was to research, memorize, and regale us…

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